and i think jim lehrer will keep it even keel as far as the performance itself. >> you prepared president bush. how tough is it to be sitting with the president of the united states and telling him, no, sir, you're doing this wrong. let's try it again. is it harder to prepare a president? >> well, a person that needs a team that's capable of doing that. and a good opponent which i think he has here. john kerry as his debate, you know, preparation opponent here, that can school him in these things. that i think is important and kerry's quite good. we saw that in 2004. he did quite well in all three of those debates but it should be sobering to romney that kerry did well in those debates but it was not decisive in the election. >> a challenger wins just by being on the stage with an incumbent president, but you have to be ronald reagan and do a there you go again and make something of that in the ensuing campaign and also outside events, obviously, iran, the hostage situation was fatally damaging to jimmy carter. but -- >> you can only make the case that really three presidential elections